Glynn County commissioner now looking for private money to expand animal shelter

Bob Coleman supports group that wants no-kill status for shelter, but wants them to raise funds

The Times-Union Glynn County Commissioner Bob Coleman has started a countywide project to raise funds to expand the Animal Services shelter.

BRUNSWICK | Glynn County Commissioner Bob Coleman is continuing his campaign to improve the county’s Animal Services division, but he has altered his outlook about who will pay for it.

The two-term commissioner is putting the financial onus onto the shoulders of the vocal group of animal rights advocates who have joined with him to reduce the number of animals killed at the county’s Animal Services shelter.

“My goal is to try not to put any more taxpayers’ money into this,” he said.

Coleman said he has enlisted the aid of local building contractors and an architect to devise a plan for expansion and improvements of the animal shelter on U.S. 17 north of Brunswick and come up with a cost estimate.

“I am currently talking with people who have approached me and volunteered their time and labor,” he said. “Plus, we have started a countywide project to raise funds.”

He has his long-term sights set on bringing the shelter up to no-kill status, but he said there are some problems that need an immediate fix.

“We have very, very limited space for the cats,” he said, “and there’s no ventilation. They’re delicate, and that affects their health.”

Coleman proposes that a “cat pavilion” be built that would amount to a screened porch for felines. While there are outside dog runs at the shelter, there is no similar facility for cats.

“We’ve found that you can’t just put a bunch of cats in a house and shut the door,” he said.

He said he is also looking at an eventual expansion of kennel space and improvements to the shelter’s cramped operating room.

Animal Services has been the object of severe criticism — some say unjustified — for months as animal rights advocates have hammered the County Commission, Police Chief Matt Doering, who supervises Animal Services, and shelter staff over the care and treatment of the animals in their custody.

It was battle characterized by strong language and name-calling.

Despite little support from the other six members of the commission, who were opposed to upping the shelter’s $420,000 annual budget, Coleman stubbornly carried on his crusade alone.

And it’s not the first time.

His wife and business partner, Sherry, said her husband is not easily deterred when he sets his sights on something.

“That’s very accurate to say,” she said.

She was by his side when he pressed for barriers to be installed on the St. Simons Island causeway after the death of his teenage son, Bert, in the1996 in a traffic accident on the causeway.

That crusade lasted more than a decade.

Coleman readily admits to his stubbornness.

“I’ve just taken the attitude that I’m very compassionate, and I have a very soft heart,” he said. “It doesn’t take much to make me cry, and when I latch onto something and I know I’m right, I’m going to see that thing through.”

Coleman’s fellow commissioner, Dale Provenzano, notes a change in the tone of the rhetoric that has accompanied Coleman’s crusade and a more acceptable financial plan.

“Honestly, what he and the others are doing now, I wish they’d done in the beginning,” Provenzano said. “I applaud the efforts of the people who want to take care of the animals. If [Coleman] feels as a commissioner that Animal Services can be done better with private money I’m certainly not against it.”

Coleman said he has visited facilities in the area that have succeeded in using the public-private model he is proposing.

One such transition occurred in Lowndes County, Coleman said, when current Glynn County Administrator Alan Ours held the same position there.

“Alan was the county administrator in Valdosta when they did this exact thing,” he said.

Ours said the transition indeed met with success in Lowndes, but he wouldn’t speculate on how well it might work there.

In addition to raising funds, Coleman said he has to raise the awareness of citizens who just have not tuned into the issue.

“The key to this whole thing is education,” he said. “How do you like or dislike something if you don’t know anything about it?”